Appliances, such as clothes washing machines, have lids or doors that close in order to prevent clothes, water and soap suds from exiting the washing machines. The lids or doors also limit access to the inside of the washing machine, in particular to a basket when the basket may be rotating. The washing machines remove water centrifugally from wet clothes by spinning the clothes at high speed in the rotating basket. It is known that modern washing machines spin at ever increasing and relatively high speeds. In order to reduce the possibility of injury to a user during such spinning of the washing machines and at other times during operation, it is known to use lock mechanisms to hold the lid or door in a closed position.
Washing machines have been provided with lock mechanisms that have closure switches to determine the position of the lid or door and disable activation of the washing machine if the lid or door is not in the closed position. It was found that the known closure switches can be circumvented by holding the switch open, for example with an instrument such as the end of a pencil, a screw driver, a finger or the like. Thus, the lid or door can be opened while the washing machine is activated.
In order to prevent tampering with and bypassing the closure switch, it is known to provide for closure sensing to ensure that the lid or door is in a proper closed position before the lock mechanism is engaged and the washing machine is activated. One such position sensor uses at least one magnet and an electrical reed switch or a mechanical switch to detect lid closure. This known solution can be complicated and expensive to incorporate into a washing machine. Thus, an improved appliance lid lock that does not suffer from the disadvantages of known lid locks is desirable.